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Boca Pacuare & Turrialba

Highlights

  • Tour the canals of Boca Pacuare  (otherwise known as the Costa Rican Amazon) with a local guide
  • Enjoy a cooking lesson with local family in Turrialba
  • Visit to the Pacuare Biological Reserve - home to a sea turtle conservation project, spending time with the locals who volunteer at the reserve
From £558 - 680pp *(Depending on numbers in your group)
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What you'll do

Overview

This Boca Pacuare to Turrialba tour takes you off the beaten path to some of the most untouched areas of the country. With locals as your guides, you'll see sides of the country a lot would miss. Your activities include spending the day at a local sea turtle conservation project, touring the array of untouched canals and lagoons, spotting monkeys in the rainforest and learning to cook traditional Costa Rican cuisine with a local family.

San José To Boca Pacuare

San Jose to Boca Pacuare

We leave first thing from San Jose. Twenty minutes after leaving San José towards the Caribbean lowlands, you will drive into the Braulio Carrillo National Park, one of the largest and most diverse parks in the country. After approximately 30 minutes, you will descend into the lowlands, and you’ll be able to see the transition between the Cloud and the Rain Forest, breakfast will be taken in a restaurant on the way.

At mid-morning you’ll arrive to the port where you’ll get on a river boat. Your vacation begins in Boca Pacuare, as today’s destination is the fascinating canals of the Caribbean coast, considered the Costa Rican Amazon. Your boat will take you up to this area, with its extensive system of canals, and to the lodge where you will spend the next two nights. Your guide will give you detailed explanations of this complex Eco-system. Miles of untouched Caribbean beaches also offer the opportunity to see (when in season) the green sea turtle nesting or the leatherback sea turtle, the world’s largest and second largest sea turtle in the world.

Accommodation: Lirio Lodge Boca Pacuare

Boca Pacuare

A full day to explore the Boca Pacuare area: a floating trip on the canals of the Madre de Dios lagoon is a great opportunity to see a big variety of birds, reptiles, monkeys, and butterflies. To top it off, you will also visit the Pacuare Biological Reserve. You will also visit the Sea Turtle conservation Project and spend time with the volunteers in charge of the program. If you visit during the week days, you will also visit the local rural school.

When in season there is an optional night tour to see the green turtle laying eggs on the beach. All the visits will be done with a local naturalist guide!

Kayak the Madre de Dios lagoon: this is probably the best thing to do in the area that most people don’t even know about. You will have a great and peaceful time.

Accommodation: Lirio Lodge Boca Pacuare

Turrialba

After breakfast you will leave the beautiful Caribbean coast, through the beautiful rivers of the North Caribbean, and back to the pier to jump back into the van to drive back to the valleys, but this time you’ll take a detour and will end up in Turrialba, city that was once the gateway to the Atlantic coast, and now it’s an important agricultural region and tourism destination. The drive is very scenic as you cross the green mountains and reach Turrialba, a gateway from the Caribbean Coast to the Pacific Coast, without having to stop in San José. You will stay in a Costarican Old Hacienda. Optionally, you can let a guide show you about the farm animals, enjoy the beautiful topical gardens or just kayak in the beautiful lake of the Reventazón River Dam.

Accommodation: Casa Turire

La Marta Reserve

After breakfast, you’ll spend the full day with a local guide at the beautiful La Marta reserve. This reserve is much less  visited by tourists than the main national parks, but whilst it’s not as popular, it still offers an equally incredible experience. A UNESCO heritage site consisting of 1518 hectares of protected land, this stunning reserve used to be a hub for gold mining and excavation, but the locals have swapped their pick axes for binoculars and books, as it’s now the home to a university that specialises in ecology and natural habitats.

You’ll spend you day hiking around the reserve and paying a visit to the university to learn about the work they carry out there.

After the hike you will have a cooking lesson with a local family and eat lunch together.

(Meals included: breakfast and lunch).

What's included

Included

  • Overnight stays with taxes included: 4 nights, in double occupancy with breakfasts in all hotels
  • Other meals per the itinerary
  • All point to point private transfers
  • Tours and entrance fees of programmed activities
  • Drive through Braulio Carrillo National Park
  • Transfer by boat to Boca Pacuare
  • Canal tours by boat in Boca Pacuare with a local guide
  • La Marta reserve with local guide and hike
  • Cooking lessons with a local family and lunch in Turrialba
Your local host

Roberto

I was born and raised in Costa Rica and have lived here my entire life. And ever since I could, I’ve been travelling the world. Soon after I left school, I travelled around Costa Rica and discovered every single part of it! Although, we do have a fairly small country, there’s an insane amount to explore, and I’m still exploring it today, seeking out new hiking trails, new lagoons, different viewpoints, that take you to places you hadn’t even knew existed before, it really is fascinating.

My deep knowledge of countries extends far beyond just Costa Rica as well, I’ve been lucky enough to have a broad knowledge of most of the other Central American countries, as well as, a lot of the South American coun... Read All

I was born and raised in Costa Rica and have lived here my entire life. And ever since I could, I’ve been travelling the world. Soon after I left school, I travelled around Costa Rica and discovered every single part of it! Although, we do have a fairly small country, there’s an insane amount to explore, and I’m still exploring it today, seeking out new hiking trails, new lagoons, different viewpoints, that take you to places you hadn’t even knew existed before, it really is fascinating.

My deep knowledge of countries extends far beyond just Costa Rica as well, I’ve been lucky enough to have a broad knowledge of most of the other Central American countries, as well as, a lot of the South American countries, allowing me to extend tours over there as well.

You might be surprised to know that I started out in a completely different field altogether, I studied engineering at university and worked in this industry for a little while. But, a little while later, due that passion for discovery and exploring new places eating away at me, I started my immersive travel company with a friend (14 years ago to be exact) and began having way too much fun helping people discover my wonderful country and the countries around it, so as soon as the possibility came around I just grabbed it, decided to leave engineering behind and have worked in the industry ever since.

What inspired you to work in travel?

As I’ve mentioned, I do have a bit of an obsession when it comes to showing people the beauty of Costa Rica. But apart from this, I’ve always been very much pro environment and have a keen interest in conservation. One of the best things about travel is that it can have a large component of conservation, at some point before I started working in travel, I thought I would work within conservation. So travel is a great bridge between my passions of discovery and conservation. Because if tourism is done right can help change both people’s lives and the world, and that’s really powerful.

What makes your experiences special?

Firstly, supplier and destination selection is key for us when choosing our experiences. If you get these right, you have a pretty good shot of having a truly authentic experience. So, we choose destinations that are not the same as all the other tour companies out there, those that are emerging or have something special about them, that most people don’t know about. An example would be, Drake Bay in Costa Rica, there’s a few things that everybody does e.g. the Corcovado National Park, a must visit for this area. But the difference between us and the other companies is that we use the local companies, that employ real locals, so this gives smaller companies a chance to compete with the large companies. When we choose hotels, we choose those that are sustainable, away from the normal ones.

And we always ensure the places/people we work with are committed to sustainability, it’s our mission to spread the wealth of toursim, to make sure money just doesn’t go to all the large companies, we think it should be shared equally to everyone in the country. So our suppliers are always real local people, that truly love their country and are trying to make an honest living out of it.

 

Roberto image

What Sustainability Efforts are we Taking?

What our travellers are saying...

We have told our friends about our great trip with you, and we will certainly give your details if we ever we meet people who want to go to Costa Rica. We loved the country, the people and how we felt welcomed. In an ideal world, if we win the lottery tomorrow we leave right away to Costa Rica, with you :)

Aurélie

We had a fabulous trip. The rides and hotels all worked out quite well and everything went smoothy. Thank you for all your help. It made everything easier for us to enjoy our time and not be figuring it out as we go along.

Robert

Finishing up the BEST WEEK EVER with Alonso and Roberto. Thanks for your time, the beaches and especially for the magical arriabada (sea turtles nesting) Muchas gracias a mis amigos.

Suzanne

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